Brooklyn Man Questioned in Killing of Youth

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

Published: August 19, 1990

The police were questioning a 49-year-old Brooklyn man yesterday in connection with the shooting of a 14-year-old boy in the Sunset Park neighborhood on Friday night, but had not charged him with attempted murder.

Instead, the authorities arrested the man on charges that he menaced the boy and several other teen-agers with a machete earlier last week, the police said.

The suspect, Abolpo Peralta, is the landlord of the building where the shooting occurred, at 360 West 55th Street in Sunset Park, the police said.

Mr. Peralta, a father of two who lives in the building, is known in the neighborhood for eccentric behavior and for frequently becoming enraged at children playing in a courtyard behind his building or loitering on his stoop, the police and neighbors said.

Gunman Behind Plywood Barrier

The 14-year-old boy, whose name has not been released by the police, was in critical but stable condition yesterday afternoon in the intensive-care unit at Lutheran Medical Center, an administrator at the hospital, Jesse Gehman, said.

The victim, whom neighbors identified as Edwin Lefay, of 13th Street in Brooklyn, was struck in the back by a single bullet just before 9 P.M. Friday as he stood with another boy outside 360 West 55th Street, the police said. Witnesses said he staggered about half a block trying to get to his grandmother's house before he collapsed.

The shot was fired from behind a piece of plywood blocking the alley beside the building that leads to the courtyard, the police said.

The police said that on Thursday Mr. Peralta chased a group of children, 8 to 15 years old, with a machete after finding them playing in the courtyard. Witnesses to the shooting said Friday night that Mr. Peralta had been overheard saying he would get even with the children and had been seen with a gun. Residents said on Friday that after the machete incident, the suspect placed the plywood in the alley and cut a 6-inch by 6-inch hole in it.

The police took Mr. Peralta into custody Friday night when they found the machete believed to have been used in the Thursday incident in his apartment. He was being held yesterday on charges of menacing and criminal possession of a weapon.

Sgt. Edward Burns, a police spokesman, said yesterday that Mr. Peralta was a prime suspect in the shooting. But he said that Mr. Peralta had not been charged in the shooting because no witnesses saw the gunman and because the gun, believed to be a revolver, remained missing.